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After a long, cold and busy winter, I've rejoined the work on The Zombie.

I'll be pulling the engine, eventually, but will be doing minor jobs along the way. Here's a step. I removed the air injection system. Easy enough and I'm sure it didn't work. Well, with no belt that was obvious.

I've kept the pump as I might use it as a belt tensioner on another car. Something that surprised me was how loose the "shorty" belt from the crank to the fan had gotten. It's a 21" v-belt. Maybe I should go shorter or a better quality. I recall it being really tight when I re-mounted the fan bracket.

The plugs on the rear of the heads where the air is injected were a minor struggle. Seems there was carbon or soot built up and the plugs are a bit longer than the nipples were. I had to clean the threads a bit and then crank the plugs fairly hard. I was afraid that I'd strip the threads in the aluminum heads. Makes a good reason to do it as part of a rebuild.

Who doesn't like pictures? Well, sometimes I don't when they're giant and don't fit on the screen after taking forever to load, but I'm agonna post a couple.

So ya see an air filter. What's special about it? I got it for $6 off my favorite part website, Rockauto.com. If you don't check there occasionally then you're missing out on bargains. Some things I get look like they've been on shelves for years but that's why they're getting rid of it cheap.

I'm not really clear on if RockAuto has any actual warehouses of its own. It seems to be a portal to other warehouse operations. I've also gotten a bunch of private-label parts from parts stores that have gone out-of-business. Like semi-metallic rear pads for $12.

In the pic, you can note the blue crimp-splice and my home-made starter "relay" bridge. Hidden in the wires is a blue "Y-splice" thing as well. I've pulled out all the stuff from the aftermarket alarm and the audio systems and am now focused on making the stock things work. The pic I took in advance of pulling the fuse panel to explore the back. Again.

As a minor puttering project I thought to make the rear wiper work. That was a mess and I lightly rebuilt the motor, got the relay in back working and it works except for the switch in front doesn't start it. If I hot wired it in back it'd sweep and then park.

The switch is good but there's no power to it. I should say that this is one area where the Euro wiring diagrams I got from I forget where are invaluable. The differences with the US diagram are substantial in how the wiper circuit work and is hooked to the panel and how the ignition switch is hooked up differently as well. You'd think they'd be the same except for accessories and L-jet vs. CIS but it's not.

Something that I found is that all the power leaving the panel to accessories is not fused in the panel. That's really strange, I think. If you get a short it'll just fry the wires. And that's my problem.

I was Ohming things out and checking voltages and realized there's no power to the rear wiper switch. That pin comes right off bus 15 so should be hot with the car ON but nope, it's not. The connectors are all corroded from being parked in a humid climate so it's often tough to get good readings on the multi-meter as well.

I recalled that some things didn't look so good on the back of the fuse panel so I pulled that out. Sure enough, the wire connecting bus 15 to the plug (D6) for the switch is blown out. The wire is just frayed strands and the jacket is welded to other wires. The mess is disconnected in the middle. I'm putting in a new wire there and am going to scavenge an unused fuse for the source power.

While I'm in there, I'm going to use Deoxit to clean everything. When I get this done it'll be back to the pod to make the speedo and temp gauges work and the fuel to work right.

Got the CE panel fixed and put back in. I used Deoxit on everything and the fuel gauge shows correctly. Unfortunately fuse 12 popped, as it has before, and the pod is otherwise blacked out. The rear wiper works and that switch is tied to fuse 13 which was previously unused.

I did spend a good couple of hours trying to puzzle out how relay XVI was being used. When I removed that relay to clean the contact I found there was a wire tying together two of the tangs. Another PO WTF moment. So I look at the wiring diagram and the wiring and try to figure out what it was doing. On the 1979 US relay chart it's "Headlamp Safety" and on the 1980 US it's "Fuel Injection." Of course there's no FI brain on a Euro S so it _must_ be something else.

I searched through the 1980 S wiring diagram I've found invaluable and I can't find relay XVI or use of the pins on the V and W connectors that I can tie it to. Sunroof? Factory alarm? Some other optional accessory?

I go to the car and take a look. There's no connector W at all and the "hot" lead from connector W isn't even populated. Criminently. They've wired the panel for the L-jet and left off the wiring from the panel. The whole relay issue was a waste of time. Someone put in a relay they had laying around to hot-wire a connection that served no purpose. They probably thought they were solving a no-start issue.

That was two hours wasted but the panel is in and I've checked it out fairly closely. The rear wiper starts with a touch...and the mechanical bits don't hold. One step at a time...

To address my on-going electrical problems, I thought a new flexi-cicuit for the pod might help. It's also a chance to work on the connections to the pod that always seem so fussy.

The swapping circuits went pretty well. I had extra lightbulbs and bulbs-in-holders on-hand. A few were burned out include 2 of 3 illumination lights. It's nice that the signals are all labelled on the circuit at the connectors. A few lights weren't making good contact and I got it working before it went in.

The results are spectacular. Well, an improvement, at least. I got a few more warning lights and the turn signal lamp worked, but that's since stopped. The fuel and voltage gauges clearly work better. Still no temperature and the speedo only flicks up occasionally. I'll dig into those next.

On the downside, I've found some gas under the tank and it seems to be leaking from the tank. Luckily, I have a spare tank in the rafters. A some point, the concept on never getting rid of a good, or possibly good, part pays off.

A long summer spent on other projects. Did a minor fix that's good for a couple of pics.

The rear hatch had started to pop open when driving. The liner in the latch receiver had broken up a bit and wasn't holding firmly.

I got this replacement off eBay from Germany. There are, or were, two different versions offered. It's a nice piece although rather stiff. It took a few minutes of prodding to get it into the hole and seated right. Fits well once fully in. I needed to re-adjust the receiver as I had adjusted it to try to hold the hatch shut. Added a light coat of lithium grease, too.

Can't argue with the results. The hatch closes well and is held lower than before. It doesn't pop open spontaneously and the rear wiper works again.

And what are these? A sweet pair of S4 front upper A-arms. That'll give the camber I need. The truly sweet part is that a guy was giving away "lower arms." I thought to google the P/N and found those were probably casting numbers for upper arms. Sure enough. Look to be in great shape and could actually be rebuilt arms that were never installed.

I removed the exhaust system and replaced the second muffler. Car is much more sensible without that blown-out muffler. Multiple people commented that the car sounded "great" but it was numbing to ride in it.

The back half of the Euro S dual exhaust system is identical to that of the US 85-86 system so the part was available. I had to lower the exhaust and cut open the tubes between the front and back halves. Then had the good front half of the back half (if that makes sense) welded to the pumpkin section.

My next exhaust mod will follow: replacing the stock "lima bean" exhaust manifolds with some '85 "shorty headers" that flow and sound better. That'll require a cut and weld as the exhaust manifold flanges don't line up right with the combination of later manifolds and earlier heads. The location of the exhaust ports on the heads is different and pulls the right side forward about 3" and the left side back about 1/2". Only the right side needs to be modified.

I got the new/used section from 928 International a year ago and wanted to complete the job before this years supply of on-sale used parts arrived. Actually, I wanted to finish it before ordering but the holidays intervened.

Got it done in balmy 30F conditions yesterday. -1F with a wind today! Maybe I need that garage heater. I had a woodburner out there but rarely used it as the cars and parts were too close to it. Now the insurance company made me remove it. Criminals!

The car is nicely jacked up. I'm thinking I may investigate that dripping gas tank. Cracked tank or leaking at the outlet? Either way, not acceptable. I'm entertaining a fuel cell but I do have a spare "elephant head" in the rafters.

With the depths of winter over it is time to get going on the car work.

Pictures are always good. What you see here is a completed project, an in-progress and a future project.

And an invisible project. I got around to cleaning and sorting a can full of nuts, bolts and washers. Porsche does like its odd-sized threads and those all-metal lock nuts. The quantity of fasteners does raise the question of where they all come from. Still need some 8mm washers.

The right-side fog light (outer) has been replaced. That was a good 30 minutes spent including adding a protective film to all the fog and driving lights. The lens I used is for a US model and not the correct Euro lens. I'm not sure about the difference. That's probably in the way the surface is molded as the overall shape seemed the same. Certainly an improvement over a broken one.

That thing on the left that looks like an elephant skull is, or course, the gas tank. It started to dribble a bit last year so it had to come out. I've got another in the rafters. (I'm often surprised when I look up in the warehouse) I haven't figured out what the problem is with this one.

It was a surprising pain to get out. First it had 8 gallons of gas to drain and transfer to another car. The lines to the pump assembly have been off recently so that came out well. The four bolts holding the cradle came out easily enough. That air ratchet that doesn't get used much was handy in this situation.

The challenging parts were the fifth bolt behind the filler cap and the vent hoses. That bolt was caked in dirt and solidly frozen. Luckily, it's a straight shot at it from the filler door. The trick was to get out the impact wrench and use an 8mm Allen wrench socket. (Gotta have that/those for the cam towers.) I had the wrench up on full before the bolt came loose.

The vent hoses were a real pain. Why they run one through the body is beyond me. I ended up cutting the hose on both side of the wall to deal with it. It wasn't going to come free from the fittings or slip through the hole. Had to get the tank lowered enough to stick my arm through the access hole in the trunk to be able to cut the hose on the tank side. Bruised the arm but no Cooper Cup points for that.

I'll be cleaning it up and looking for a crack. Something that's becoming clear is that the car was in a modest rear end accident. One shock is collapsed and there's some distortion in the floor of the hatch area. Things just don't fit right. I may have it on a frame rack eventually.

The future project is on the right: new Hoosier track tires. Those will be going on my other 928. Someday it'll be for The Zombie. Track season starts for me on April 25th.

When I started to work I the project, I discovered a problem: the CV joint boots had all pulled loose. That'd be all four boots. I had repacked the joints and replaced the boots soon three years ago using GKN Loebro kits. These are correct for the car. The kits include hose clamps that squeeze down to a specific size. Seems good at the time but it's, apparently, no tight enough.

With the shafts out, I found some crimp-style clamps, bought a crimper, and had at it. Replacing the boots is a nasty job with all the grease. I got the first boot done satisfactorily after some work but tore the second boot. I used some brake cleaner to degrease the boot and I think that softened the boot. Oh well. I ordered 3 new kits and will put those on shortly.

I was trying to re-mount the boots and clamp them without taking the halfshafts apart. I think I'll give in and take one CV joint off and do the boot work separately. In the pic the work is in-progress. One CV has fallen apart. The crimper is in the pic.